ry,
where every shade of green and gold, olive and brown, orange and
scarlet, melted the one into the other. The somber pines made a
deep-toned background; patches of sumach gave their flaming crimson;
the goldenrod grew rank and tall in glorious profusion, and the maples
outside the Office Building were balls of brilliant carmine. The air was
like crystal, and the landscape might have been bathed in liquid amber,
it was so saturated with October yellow.

Susanna caught her breath as she threw her chamber window wider open in
the early morning; for the greater part of the picture had been painted
during the frosty night.

"Throw your little cape round your shoulders and come quickly, Sue!" she
exclaimed.

The child ran to her side. "Oh, what a goldy, goldy morning!" she cried.

One crimson leaf with a long heavy stem that acted as a sort of rudder,
came down to the windowsill with a sidelong scooping flight, while two
or three gayly painted ones, parted from the tree by the same breeze,
floated airily along as if borne on unseen wings, finally alighting on
Sue's head and shoulders like tropical birds.

"You cried in the night, Mardie!" said Sue. "I heard you snifferling
and getting up for your hank'chief; but I did n't speak 'cause it's so
dreadful to be _catched_ crying."

"Kneel down beside me and give me part of your cape," her mother
answered. "I'm going to let my sad heart fly right out of the window
into those beautiful trees."

"And maybe a glad heart will fly right in!" the child suggested.

"Maybe. Oh! we must cuddle close and be still; Elder Gray's going to sit
down under the great maple; and do you see, all the Brothers seem to be
up early this morning, just as we are?"

"More love, Elder Gray!" called Issachar, on his way to the toolhouse.

"More love, Brother Issachar!"

"More love, Brother Ansel!"

"More love, Brother Calvin!"

"More love!.... More love!.... More love!" So the quaint but not
uncommon Shaker greeting passed from Brother to Brother; and as Tabitha
and Martha and Rosetta met on their way to dairy and laundry and
seed-house, they, too, hearing the salutation, took up the refrain,
and Susanna and Sue heard again from the women's voices that beautiful
morning wish, "More love! More love!" speeding from heart to heart and
lip to lip.

Mother and child were very quiet.

"More love, Sue!" said Susanna, clasping her closely.

"More love, Mardie!" whispered the child, smiling and